Native Linux Games for an Arcade Cabinet: Super Meat Boy

My arcade cabinet’s recent road trip only resulted in some very mild cosmetic damage. I have been separated from my arcade table for quite a few months, since a few weeks before the release of the fourth Humble Indie Bundle. There were quite a few games in that bundle that will be finding a home on my arcade cabinet, but I have been hoping for a native copy of Super Meat Boy ever since I started building the thing!

When I bought the fourth Humble Indie Bundle back in December, I just had to try playing Super Meat Boy. I gave up on level 1-14… I’m not entirely sure whether I was just unhappy playing with a keyboard or if I just didn’t want to spoil the fun of playing on the arcade cabinet!

Things went a lot better when I loaded the game on the arcade cabinet yesterday. Before I knew it, I was completely through the first world and well on my way through the second! I won’t be surprised if I’m most of the way through the game in the next few days, assuming I can find some time to play!

Minor Problems

The controls for Super Meat Boy are simple enough and I had no problem mapping them to the joystick and buttons. However, I am having trouble with the video settings. It always wants to run in a window when it starts up. Super Meat Boy’s GUI on Linux lets you choose a resolution and set the game to full screen, but it doesn’t remember that setting after I quit.

I can live with this for now, but when I get some free time I might fire up strace and see if it is failing to open or write to any config files.

Update: Super Meat Boy on Linux has been correctly saving and restoring settings since the June, 2012 update.